


Joy Ride

by pomcha, skell



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Car Racing, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, And also mild Tsukishima/Akaashi, Brief mention of Kiyoko/Saeko, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 07:44:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4697918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pomcha/pseuds/pomcha, https://archiveofourown.org/users/skell/pseuds/skell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a technologically advanced future, racing is society’s top form of entertainment. Racers and their copilot engineers compete with each other in complex vehicles that zoom across the skyways. They’re like celebrities, with tight schedules filled with interviews, photoshoots, and preparations for the next race. The latest racing buzz settles around two rival teams: The Sparrows (Shimizu and Kei) and the Crows (Saeko, Ryuu, and Yuu).</p><p>Childhood friends and recent university grads Yachi Hitoka (a photographer and designer) and Yamaguchi Tadashi (a reporter and commentator) score a summer internship following their favorite team. Sparrow pilot Shimizu and her engineer Kei are known for their cool demeanors, but as the two interns cover them through their summer season they get to know the pair as much more than just the hottest idols.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. LAP 1: Star-shaped Cufflinks

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [Sabrina](http://whisperingsaints.tumblr.com) and [Abby](http://creativay.tumblr.com), our beta and our artist for the [HQBB](http://hqbb.tumblr.com/)!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo, this is pomcha, reporting for duty! I'm the one who draws the chapter headers. As a note, chapters taking place in the present are called laps, and flashback chapters are called heats. That's all. Thanks for joining us for the ride!

The glass doors slide open with a soft whirr. Midday light streams through walls of windows, dancing off of them and shining unceremoniously into her eyes.

_Eh? Huh?_

She feels strangely groggy, numbly rubbing a tiny hand against her face and frantically hoping her retinas didn’t just get totally fried. The impatient beeping of the door rings through her head once, twice, thrice, until the voices of a couple of passersby shove past her.

“Hey, what’s that blonde girl’s problem, just standing there?”

“Whatever, didya catch that race with that hotshot rookie team?”

“Dude! The Sparrows totally _wrecked_ it out there!”

“Yeah, right? They’re sooo— Whoooa, look! They’ve got french fries today!”

The two students romp off, ignoring the small girl’s excited exclamation of, “Sparrows!?” She can’t say she’s unused to that sort of treatment though. Her shoulders sag a bit as she tilts her head to the side, and her nose twitches, catching an unmistakably salty scent.

_Am I in the cafeteria?_

She feels a light weight in her hand, almost unsettling in the way it seemed familiar. Looking down, she finds the pink handle of a Hello Kitty lunchbox clutched in her fingers.

_I haven’t used this since high school..._

Her white Mary Janes tap against buffed smooth linoleum as she steps over the door’s threshold and patters about, squinting around the hustle and bustle of the lunchtime rush for a telltale lock of flyaway hair. She nearly steps on at least three different cleaning discs, and she fights her innate nature to apologize to inanimate objects. The machineries’ thin forms glide across the floor, sensors shifting their directions in response to the students’ shuffling feet. Her eyes transfix themselves on one, humming softly as it darts between long legs and vacuums up crumbs left by a sea of giants.

 _I know how you feel, Mr. Disc. Keep doing your best! I will too!_ She huffs out a breath and nods to herself.

“Heeey! Hitoka!”

Whirling around, she catches sight of a boy with way too many fries on his plate for his own good, and her face can’t decide between furrowed concern and bright grinning at the sight of her longtime friend.

“Tadashi!” she chirps as she slides into the hovering plastic seat across from him. She doesn’t tear her eyes away from the other boy’s quadruple helping of mega health hazard as she comments, “I fear for your heart.”

“Umm, well, uhhh,” he mumbles, dithering bashfully over them. Hitoka waits for the boy’s response as she tries and fails to open her lunchbox, and she’s flooded with a severe sense of deja vu. Tadashi tentatively nibbles on a particularly soggy fry before slamming his hands onto the glossy table and squeaking out an, “ _Anyways!_ Uhm, you saw the Sparrows in yesterday’s race, right?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world!” Her grin shines with a thousand watts and her arms grip her neglected lunchbox tight against her chest. “Ahh, Shimizu’s way amazing!”

_And beautiful and elegant and smart and hot and not that much older than me and she’s—_

“—completely out of reach, right?” Tadashi grins.

“Ha? Wha?” She crashes down from her sparkling star-studded fantasy world and plummets back to Earth, blushing furiously. “I mean. Um. What? Sorry, I wasn’t? Um?”

“Huh, did you zone out again?” He tilts his head thoughtfully before shoving five particularly soggy fries into his mouth. “Like, I was saying, they were totally out of reach of the other teams! The Compy is amazing!”

“Oh! Oh. Y-yeah, their car sure is pretty cool!” Hitoka sweats bullets, gulping down her embarrassment.

 _Is it hotter than usual? It’s hot, right?_ She eyes the table again, only to find that the contents of her friend’s plate is beginning to overflow and spill. She offhandedly wonders when the number of his fries had doubled. _Did Tadashi order seconds while I was daydrea- uh, thinking about Shimizu again? That’s a lot of salt on there, right? What if we dry up? What if the building breaks, and the shiny, shiny sun out there roasts us!? Water, I need water. A nice glass of—_

Tadashi tilts his head the other way. “Are you alright?”

“UM. I need water!?”

He just finishes shoveling down a good handful more of his seemingly endless sodium delight when Hitoka makes her proclamation, and the poor boy proceeds to choke helplessly as his food train barrels down the wrong pipe. Hitoka springs up from her chair, slamming her palms down on the table and absolutely yelping, “YES, okay I’ll go-”

A hand falls softly onto her left shoulder, and a clear bottle slides into her vision from the right. The water sloshing around inside mimics her roiling stomach, and that feeling only intensifies when a voice cool as quicksilver slips into her ears.

“Need water?”

Hitoka rotates herself mechanically.

Kiyoko Shimizu — pink-lipped, hand on hip, and in full racing uniform with her helmet tucked under her arm — stares her down, unblinking.

Hitoka forgets how to talk.

Practically radiating light, the raven-haired racer brings a hand up to her mouth and uses her teeth to pull off her glove with a single, smooth tug, revealing her long, pale fingers and immaculately manicured nails.

Hitoka forgets how to breathe.

The ungloved hand glides towards the bottle in her other. She twists the clear blue cap with two clean flicks of her wrist, allowing the stopper to come off with a light _pop_. Shimizu raises the shimmering bottle to her parted lips and lets the water flow between them. Swallowing gently, she lowers the drink and exhales with the grace of a breeze. Her hair streams out behind her like ink, and her tongue swiftly swipes away the moistness from her lips.

Hitoka feels like the tiniest cleaning disc.

“Are you thirsty?” Shimizu swishes the bottle to the side and readjusts her helmet, shifting her balance to the other foot. Her face remains impassive as she cooly recites her lines.

Hitoka feels like she’s going to die.

“The racing lifestyle is a busy one, and the cockpit heats up fast.” She takes another heavenly sip and turns her head, letting her hair sweep behind her. Hitoka vaguely registers a familiar tune playing in the distance.

“But Hydrapure has us covered.”

The tiny blonde feels her skin dry up. Pinpricks of salt burn against her skin, and she glances behind her only to stare at a dizzyingly large pile of french fries. Tadashi is nowhere in sight. She jolts back and her vision is consumed with the image of the racer pouring the rest of the bottle over herself. Shimmering water cascades down and streams through her dark hair. Shining droplets lit with cool blue light catch on her thin frames and slide across her porcelain skin.

Hitoka feels herself shrivelling up.

 “Their newly patented water desalination techniques will pave the human race’s track to an ocean’s depth of hydration.”

Hissing tides splash against Hitoka’s ankles, and she grits her teeth at the sting of it flowing into her sizzling cells. It rises higher and higher, sloshing and churning. Intense pressure assaults her from all sides, and the floor sags beneath her feet like putty. Her gut heaves up into her stomach like a whale bursting from the sea, and the cool voice of her racing idol rings uncomfortably through her throbbing brain.

“And I never intend to lose a race. I’m Shimizu Kiyoko, pilot of the Sparrows, and I stay hydrated with Hydrapure.”

The liquid rises quickly, but instead of the cooling sensation she hopes for, it prickles like pins and needles. Her lungs feel tight and her vision goes darker. _I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die I’m gonna die. I’m gonna drown in the middle of the ocean and get eaten by a big fish with pointy jagged teeth and it’s gonna digest me a-and then spit me up and-_

She squeezes her eyes shut when something zooms right by her face, cutting through the water, and she gasps with every fiber of her being. Her eyes widen at the horizon. Sleek, polished grey metal tipped with a sharp red beak shooting through the sound barrier. It’s capped with a rounded, glassy window dark as obsidian, like the gigantic eye of a cyclops growing larger as it moves straight towards her on the checkered finish line below her shoes. Two gleaming white headlights wink at her, and she can’t tear her eyes or feet away. The high humming of the encroaching engine becomes louder and more palpable, squeezing her skin to her bones, screeching forwards, cutting through the air, and her throat constricts as the heat of it comes close enough to singe her skin—

“Mphhgh!?”

Hitoka Yachi wakes with a start, her alarm blaring out candy pop and her hair sticking up defiantly in some failed parody of an edgy rock star's styled ‘do. Her heart titters like a bird and her lungs are running a marathon. She stares wide-eyed at her Hello Kitty nightlight, flops back onto her pillow, and brings her hands up to wipe the cold sweat from her face.

The chime subsides for an electronic, feminine voice. “Hitoka, calm down. It was only a dream,” it repeats, “Calm down. It was only a dream. Calm down. It was only a dream.”

The mantra mollifies her enough that her lids droop again and the throbbing in her head begins to fade. Somewhere in her addled brain she deeply thanks whoever thought up that app. She still feels dazed when she reaches to press the back of her hand against a round, white pad on the dark wall behind her. It fades from black to clear, and pale morning light flecked with dust seeps through, glancing off the colorful posters hung neatly on the opposite wall. Dragging her upper half out of bed, Hitoka scoops up a postcard-sized device from her nightstand and slides her finger along the screen to silence her dwindling wake-up call.

She groans. _One day I’m not gonna even wake up._ Her foot slides out of her bed and toes into a fuzzy star-emblazoned slipper. _I’ll end up in a coma and then a bunch of scary tall guys in black suits are gonna pick me up and take me to a big, cold research lab and..._

The tone of her second alarm begins to ring, and she takes it as a cue to stand on her two feet.

After disabling the rest of her follow-up alarms, Hitoka drags her feet into the bathroom. She adjusts the heat settings before peeling off her nightclothes, and when she steps into the shower, the water beats down her back at just the right pressure and temperature.

 _This is so relaxing, I want to fall asleep here. Yeah. It wouldn’t hurt to catch a few more minutes of rest, right? I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? Some water in my ear? Ah. EH—_ She fumbles with the soap as it slips and slides between her hands. Sinking into a kneel and clutching the bar to her chest, she pushes that pricking feeling of drowning to the furthest corners of her consciousness while the rest of her mind races ahead. _Wah. What if_ I _slip next time? And end up hitting my head on the tile? And getting a concussion? What if I die? What if they find me here, dead and wet and naked and—_

She buttons up a clean shirt and swipes the dust off her knee-length skirt. She combs through her hair before tying a portion of her bangs away from her face, and with swift motions of her hand, she brings a pop of colour on her pale cheeks. Hitoka breaks away from her makeup palette to glance at her tablet.

“I just woke up,” the new text message reads.

“At least you got some sleep, Tadashi!” Hitoka types.

“I know,” the boy replies. “I’ll try to get ready within fifteen minutes. See you in a bit, Hitoka!”

She sends a quick response back. She puts away her tablet before she walks over to her kitchen to prepare a light meal for herself. The sizzle of oil and the smell of eggs and butter entice her senses, and her mouth waters as she squeezes some syrup onto her food. When she finishes, Hitoka sets her plate on the dining table, and the clatter of plastic against wood echoes in the room.

She flips on the television in her breakfast nook. A soothing voice emanates from the speakers, and she whips her head up just in time to catch the girl from her dreams seated in a posh news set. The racer flashes a reserved smile before she opens her mouth to speak.

“Yes, I’m looking forward to racing the Crows this summer.”

“So Shimizu,” the news anchor continues, “You’re 22 — that’s quite young to be this popular in the scene! Your top rivals have been racing for three more years than you have. With that in mind, have you and your engineer been making any special preparations on your ride, the Compsognathus, for your race against the Crows?”

Shimizu’s lips quirk into a grin. She readjusts her eyeglasses, hiding her mouth behind her palm. The mischievous flash of her teeth lasts for only a moment, but Hitoka captures and files it into her expansive mental collection.

“Nothing out of the ordinary. We’re simply working to be at our best form.”

The interview transitions to a video montage of two cars drifting, speeding, and making sharp turns while barely being an arm’s width apart. One of them, sleek and white with a rounded black window, sets Hitoka’s heart racing with recognition. The Sparrows’ vehicle is considerably less terrifying on TV, where it _isn’t_ about to barrel her tiny body over.  “Of the twenty-nine races that the Crows and Sparrows have competed in this year, they triumphed as champions ten times each, losing only to the Hawks and the Owls,” the reporter relays through a voiceover. “The race taking place next week is being held to settle the score between these two fierce rivals.”

Despite the savoury aroma of her meal, Hitoka focuses all her senses on the news segment. The network cuts to a commercial break, and it’s only then that she finally blinks her eyes. She scrunches her brows at the snippet of Hydrapure celebrity endorsements that plays on the screen. Straight lipped, she turns her head back down to the tablet by her plate.

The girl glances at the time and feels an electric surge rush down her spine. She stuffs her mouth with waffles and downs half a glass of grapefruit juice before slipping on a sky blue blazer. After fussing with its star-shaped cufflinks, she shoves her tablet into her purse and stumbles back into her bedroom, hastily grabbing her bags and dumping them into an opaque white pod. It slides closed with a jab from her foot. Her shaky fingers mess up the authorization sequence on the lid twice before she finally keys in the address code for the Racing Federation Building. With a huff, she wheels the transport pod towards her apartment’s vestibule, slides open the hatch by her front door, and sends it down the mail tube with a resounding _shup_!

Her heart seizes for the third time that morning when she hears slow, steady beeping from outside. _Oh my god, is it overweight. Oh my god! Is it robots!? Does the police force have robots now? That was on the news last week, right!? Is overweight luggage a crime!? I’m not prepared for lasers!!!_

She squeaks, gnaws at her lip, gulps down her fear, and slams the door-opening button with her eyes squeezed shut. The beeping subsides, and she hears the quiet keening of another door opening further away. Tentatively, she takes a peek.

A two-seater driverless car is parked not a meter from her porch, open and ready for her to hop in. A familiar hand retracts away from a button on the dash, and a friendly face looks at her with sleepy concern.

Hitoka exhales. “...I am _never_ going to get used to that signal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, skell here! Thanks so much for picking up this story! I had a lot of fun writing and conceptualizing it with pomcha, and I hope you'll enjoy it just as much! If you thought this chapter was Kinda Gay, it's only going to get more and more intense from here on out, so fasten your seat belts—!


	2. LAP 2: Celebrity Glasses Cloth

 

"Hi, sorry. Good morn—" the freckled boy smiles and yawns, “Morning.”

"Good morning, Tadashi," she replies, plopping onto the seat next to him. “I’m so, so sorry I’m late!”

“You were watching your mom’s show again, weren’t you?” He rubs his eyes as the vehicle’s door slides closed and it powers up, hovering slightly above the road. The dash screen flickers on to show a GPS map, and an unobtrusive voice assures them that  _You will arrive at your destination in approximately three hours and twenty minutes. Thank you for travelling with Autoport._

Hitoka forces a smile as she responds, “She was interviewing Shimizu again and I just lost track of time.”

"I'm not surprised," the boy shrugs. "You probably wouldn't have a hard time focusing your camera on her since that's what you always do anyway."

"Hey, I can do my job when I have to," Hitoka defends herself with a pout. "I hope you aren't planning on just interviewing Tsukishima either."

"O-of course not," Tadashi splutters. "I'll talk to Shimizu for you, too, partly as thanks for giving me this opportunity in the first place."

"R-r-really?" Hitoka stammers. "Ah, but I didn't do anything at all. You should be thanking my mom instead."

“I still want to thank you,” the boy adds. The tablet in his messenger bag buzzes to a frenzied tune, and Hitoka isn’t one to miss the pale face that graces her friend’s lockscreen.

“Shouldn’t you be changing that?”

“Do you think I should?” Tadashi asks warily. “I’m so used to this background already, it’d feel weird to switch it out.”

“Tsukishima literally had that photoshoot a week ago.”

“Maybe so,” he says with a strained smile on his face. He taps on an application icon and hastily skims through its new notifications. “But that doesn’t really matter, right? I doubt he’d ever get close enough to see my tablet.”

“Hmm, I don’t know. I changed my tablet’s theme just in case, anyway,” Hitoka replies as she leans over to get a better look at Tadashi’s screen. “Eh, you’re already placing bets this early into the season?”

“The winners are pretty obvious by now,” the boy shrugs.

“Uwah, you placed that much on the Hawks?” Hitoka squeaks.

“I got twice that from betting on them the last season, and I don’t think they’d disappoint this time around either,” Tadashi smiles.

“You still bet the most on the Sparrows though,” the girl comments, wide eyes surveying the amount that blinked on the screen. “I’d be worried for your pocket if not for the fact that you almost always profit from all this gambling.”

“I’m just supporting them in whatever way I can!” Tadashi admits with a widened grin. He swipes at his screen before he puts the device away. “I wouldn’t be able to afford all their merchandise with only my measly salary anyway.”

“Well I guess you’re right. The Sparrows’ items tend to be a little pricey lately,” Hitoka hums. She fidgets with her fingers as she stares out the window, the city flashing before her.

“You still worked to redeem that limited edition Shimizu water bottle though.”

Hitoka whips her head around quickly, her neck throbbing from the sudden and forceful movement.

Tadashi laughs. “But I did have a lot of fun helping you collect all those special Hydrapure bottle caps. It was painful to see you chugging so much water that you had to go to the restroom every ten minutes,” he adds, pausing only to wipe away the tears in his eyes.

“H-hey, hey!” Hitoka whimpers, playfully slapping her friend’s shoulder in an attempt to end the boy’s chuckling. “At least I didn’t stay up for three days straight to make sure I won the auction for a Tsukishima-themed glasses cloth. You don’t even wear glasses!”

“Oh, come on, don’t be like that. It was limited edition. Besides, I wasn’t the one who got caught trying to nab one of Shimizu’s broken pairs of racing goggles.”

“Hnnngh,” the girl grumbles as she covers her face with her hands. She rests her head against the car’s window and feels her temples vibrate from the vehicle’s movements. “I made sure that no one was at the pit stop area when I looked in the trash. No one was supposed to be there. I still can’t believe that guy saw me. What if I see him again this time? What if he told Shimizu about what I did?! I’m going to cry.”

“You don’t need to worry about it. That guy should’ve forgotten all about it by now. Since we’d be working closely around Tsukishima and Shimizu, we probably wouldn’t have any time to meet anyone else anyway.”

“Ah, I can’t believe I’ll be meeting Shimizu again...” Hitoka sighs. She moves her palms to cup her cheeks, and she stares at the view outside. The suspended roads twist around and before her, and in the distance she spots an underdeveloped area. “Helping out with mom’s interview with her was one thing, but now that we’ll be doing everything on our own, I’m not sure if I’m ready.”

“I know, right?” Tadashi agrees. “I wasn’t even this nervous when we interviewed the Owls.”

“I still have nightmares about Bokuto and Kuroo’s eyes sometimes. Their stares were so intense,” Hitoka mumbles, remembering the piercing glares that she had focused her camera lens on.

“I feel like Kuroo looked more threatening whenever he smiled.”

“Isn’t Tsukishima like that too, though?” she asks. The bright azure sky appears cloudless above her. She turns her gaze downwards to spare her eyes from looking directly at the sun, but instead feels her heart plummet through the concrete jungle to the ground 103 feet below her.

“Tsukishima’s smile could save lives. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tadashi answers in monotone.

Hitoka swallows, reeling as her brain starts jumping loops and her heart speeds back up her throat. She shakily turns to her friend, her voice barely above a whisper as she rasps, “U-uh, okay. D-do you think it could save our lives right now?”

“Huh?”

She clings into Tadashi, tightly clutching the boy’s freckled forearm. “T-Tadashi, the skyways won’t come crashing down, r-right?”

“What?” the boy jolts, then flinches in realization.  _No, not again. Nooo._

He quickly brings his hand atop hers and attempts to give Hitoka a reassuring pat despite his unsteady grip. “W-what are you saying, that’s impossible, it’s always been impossible, there haven’t been any incidents like that.”

“But what if we become the first?”

“T-That’s, uh, w-well,” Tadashi stammers. “Let’s not, er, let’s not think about it too much. Look,” he says while pointing at the car’s dashboard, “it says that traffic is low, the weather will be great all day long, and we’ll be there in a little over two hours. We’d be in the Federation Building in no time.”

“So much could happen in two hours…”

Tadashi pushes some buttons and starts up the vehicle’s television. He switches it to the news channel and lowers the volume to a decent level. “If we watch some TV, we wouldn’t even notice the time passing. W-we’ll be fine.”

Hitoka nods and huddles close to her friend, keeping her eyes glued to the dashboard lest her eyes wander out to the window again. Her mom’s entertainment segment long over, the screen instead flashes with bright red flame and pitch black smoke. Before Hitoka could even register the ruin of metal that lay crushed in the middle of a race track, the scene transitions to cuts of interviews, challenger debuts, vivid karts and sleeker race cars, trophies being awarded.

The screen bursts with colour and then fades to gray, the show’s title blazing in the center. The narrator goes on to discuss various iconic moments of racing history, causing Hitoka’s and Tadashi’s eyelids to droop heavily. They’ve practically memorized these facts already. The droning of the television ends up being nothing but background noise to Yachi’s more pressing mental worries, but the way their anxieties drain at their energy is enough to lull them both to sleep on each others’ shoulders. The constant hum of the car backs the rhythm of their quiet breathing, punctuated with gentle snores.


	3. HEAT 1: Powder-pink Scrunchies

Searing white spotlights shone down from the ceiling, glinting through the dimmed room to illuminate the track, curving, rolling, and flanked with thick, colorful barriers emblazoned with company logos. Upbeat, hot-blooded music reverberated through the hall.            

_“Good afternoon! We’re here now live from Sol City University’s Karting Stadium. Welcome again to the 5th annual inter-district team karting competition, sponsored by the National Motorsports Federation!”_

A young pigtailed girl stroked her beauty-marked chin, elbow and forearm propped up on the steel railing in front of her. She watched her classmates down in the pit below her, all in matching hand-decorated T-shirts, scramble with last minute preparations on their school’s tiny kart. Behind her, rows of silver bleachers lined the hall, and over the chatter of the crowd she could hear the metallic footsteps made by the parents of the older students leaving.

_“We’re moving on to our final event, the youth division competition! Fifteen teams have gathered here today, and soon they’ll be neck and neck...”_

“Hey! Kiyoko!”

She turned her attention away from the announcer and tilted her head towards the _clunk-tap_ of someone approaching.

“Kiyoko, sorry I’m late!” The owner of the voice hobbled over, a small digital camera clanking occasionally against her crutch as she moved.  “Are you really okay with this?”

Kiyoko nodded, “You know I’ve been practicing, Yui.”

“I know, I know, but it just feels bad, having someone fill in for me like that. Even if you were supposed to be my backup all along! I just. I uh...”

She cocked her head at the fretting girl, who’d gone silent. Kiyoko could have won an award for the most patient and level-headed twelve-year-old in the world for the pause that followed. A bubble seemed to have surrounded the two, cutting them off from the idle chatter of spectators and too-loud dance tunes hyping up the other competitors.

“My parents said that-” her normally cheerful voice wavered, “that since I got hurt like this, I can’t race anymore.”

Kiyoko exhaled, then whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“I mean, it’s okay! It’s totally okay! It’s not like I really thought I could make it as a pro anyway,” Yui exclaimed, immediately snapping back up and starting to wave her arms around before nearly dropping her crutch, “Ack! I mean, we were supposed to manage this club together, but then I got so into piloting, and I never gave you a chance to do it, and, well, my leg happened, and you just kind of took everything else on yourself, and so, now I can focus on that manage-y stuff to support you, right? I know you’re moving soon, but… but there’s no way I’d quit! That’s even more of a reason not to quit!”

“Ah.” Blinking twice at the onslaught of emotion, Kiyoko placed a hand on the other’s shoulder before she responded, “It’s fine. I had fun.” She glanced back down into the pit again, smiling when she saw one of their more nerve-prone teammates jog after a runaway wheel, the other two distracted by the overpriced little robot bug they had picked up at the booths set up outside the hall.

The two fell into another silence as her gaze shifted over to the other teams, forming a motley rainbow of different colored shirts. She noted their abundances of members. Some karts looked intimidatingly complex, thin frames loaded on with boosters and covered with kids double-checking every bolt, screw, and magnet. Others were big, hulking, and probably barely fitting under the weight limit. One in particular caught her eye, a slim, bird-like machine with surprisingly few students around it, all in well-designed, professional looking T-shirts. One of them, a fluffy canary-haired kid with his back turned to her, seemed much more focused on tuning it than the others. _I kind of want to pet him..._ Kiyoko’s gaze lingered there before she dropped it back down to her pink-clad classmates.

“Our team is small,” she noted.

“Our school is small. But we got here, didn’t we? We’re gonna show all those big schools and their big budgets who’s boss!”

Kiyoko thought back to the regular division race from the morning, the rush of air that she was sure would pull her powder-pink scrunchies clear off. The big grin on the tough face of the teen racer who slipped off her jet-black helmet after passing the finish line. Hands shooting rock-on signs to the cameras, their flashes bouncing off her dyed platinum blonde hair. That wink she’d shot her from the pit stop, or maybe it was just meant for the crowd in general—

She felt her cheeks heat up.

“I’m excited.”

Yui looked at her incredulously. “Excited? _That’s_ your excited voice?”

Kiyoko turned and grinned, eyes sparkling and heart pounding.

“Yes.”

The ceiling fixtures dimmed and multicolored spotlights began circling the hall. The techno-pop tune that had been playing in the background reduced in volume to accommodate the announcer’s voice, and Yui nearly jumped out of her lattice cast upon hearing it.  _“Time’s up for all pit crew preparations. Pilots, make your way to your vehicles!”_

“Well, get down there!” The other girl’s eyes scrunched up from the force of her grin, “Let’s make your last year here count!”


	4. LAP 3: Bejeweled Black Laquer

Hitoka and Tadashi’s ride hums to a stop at a drop-off point in front of a series of imposing glass doors, framed with steel. Rows of tall, white columns stretch as far as the eye can see before curving around the building. Multiple lanes accommodate the tapping of people with cameras and heels as they exit their autos, the beeping of big carrier cars toting glinting metal parts, and the swoosh and zoom of tiny transport pods through clear hanging tubes. The lattice overhang above cuts through the searing midday sunlight, casting spidery shadows across the busy lot. Through the windows of the car, dark lines run curves across Tadashi’s twitching, drooling face.

“We met through our schools’ karting races, and have been rivals ever since.”

Yachi blinks herself out of semi-consciousness, the hum of Shimizu’s voice streaming from the car’s speakers having lured her back to reality. She turns and squints at her companion’s less than elegant sleep-state. _Well… he does usually wake up late, so this isn’t surprising—_

_“You have arrived at your destination. Please exit the vehicle.”_

The doors of the car slide open, and its polite _“Please exit the vehicle”_ becomes interspersed with beeping. Hitoka twists from where she’s beginning to shake Tadashi awake, notices the long line of identical passenger cars behind her, squeaks, and shakes her poor friend’s shoulders even more vigorously.

“Tadashiii—”

“Wha? Wah! Whaddya mean th’ Tsukki Happy Meals are sold out!?”

He snaps his head up and rubs at the red imprint his sleeve left on his face, letting out a pitiful yelp when Hitoka grabs him, jolts him out of the car, and tries to wipe his drool away with her puppy-printed handkerchief. Handing it over to let him do the rest, she stops and checks her pocket mirror with a gasp.

“We _need_ to find a restroom to freshen up in!” she exclaims, pulling him forwards by the wrist.

He can’t contain himself once the two of them step through those sliding, steel framed doors.

“Whoa, it’s like a _spaceship!_ ”

His mouth hangs open as his wide eyes follow a long red carpet straight ahead. A monumental platinum statue depicting crossed flags over a rotating sphere glints at him from above what looks like a circular receptionist’s desk. Holographic replicas of racing vehicles zoom around the sphere, phasing through each other when their paths cross. The glistening white hall sprawls outwards, and grand screens relaying racing footage decorate the walls. Light from sheets of windows peeks through large loops of stone stairways, reflected on gleaming laminate floors along with the varied shoes of passersby. His gaze wanders up, past suspended walkways, to the ceiling, patterned with colorful, tessellated lattices like fractals translated through 3D goggles.

Hitoka bites at her lip, worried eyes firmly secured on the floor map she’s pulled up on her tablet. The doors behind her slide open again with a clean _zhup,_ and a particularly loud group of people jostle past her.

“ _She’s_ here today, right?”

“That’s what I heard!”

“Hey, hey, out of the way! I can’t get a good shot like this!”

Hitoka looks up, only to be blinded by the dizzying flash of camera lights. She blinks her eyes rapidly in an attempt to ward off the green orbs that obscure her vision. When her sight begins to clear, she immediately focuses on the small frame stomping down the winding stairwell, the clicking of heels piercing through the cacophony of noise. Questions and cheers buzz in the air, and the sound of seven thousand interviews happening simultaneously makes the two friends’ hearts race with excitement.

"Oy, where do you think you're aiming that camera?!" booms a familiar voice from the crowd. Hitoka cranes her neck to find the speaker, but to no avail.

"Give my big sis some breathing room, why don'tcha?" says another.

"Miss Saeko, what are your thoughts on the rumors that the Sparrows are debuting a new vehicle during your race?"

The girl waves a hand in the air as she cackles. "There's nothing that Kiyoko could do that would best me and my crew," she says with an air of confidence. "If she thinks Soggy, that over-polished pissbucket of junk her prissy prettyboy engineer likes to call a ride, is any match for my baby, she's got another thing coming," she added with a flash of the bejeweled black lacquer of her dainty middle finger.

Her two lackeys, one short and spiky and the other bald and built, hoot and howl as they stomp behind her.

"That's right! Wreck ‘em!"

"You're so cool!"

"Of course I am, Yuu," Saeko laughs, and the way her generous chest rises and falls with her every laugh and step has Hitoka entranced.

"The Crows' personalities are really larger than life, huh?" Tadashi asks as he smooths out his shirt.

"Definitely larger than what registers on television," the girl mumbles, subconsciously bringing a hand up to pat her own chest.

"Huh?"

“Huh?” Hitoka repeats. “What is it?”

Tadashi looks at his friend, his eyebrows drawn with concern. That expression swiftly shifts when he glances at his watch and the reading of the time drains his body of colour. He grabs Hitoka by the hand and drags her right into the thick of the crowd as he yelps, “Crap, we don’t have time left!”

“W-wait, where are you going?” Hitoka shouts back, her already frazzled appearance only worsening from every push and shove she sustains from trying to match pace with Tadashi.

“To the meeting room,” the boy answers with a serious tone. He keeps Hitoka directly behind him in an attempt to shield her from most of the throng’s force.

“But our ID cards haven’t been authorized yet! We wouldn’t be able to enter that area without an escort,” she wheezes breathlessly. “We need to head to reception first!”

“Eh? Really?” Tadashi says, whipping his head to look at Hitoka’s face for confirmation, staggers a bit, and subsequently bumps into someone else in the process. “Ah, excuse us—”

“WHOA! Whoa! What do we have here!”

Tadashi flinches at the booming voice and finds his eyes lowering considerably to meet its source. When he does, his mouth dries up. Hitoka’s steadying hand rests paralyzed on his forearm, her face frozen in shock.

“Is this young love? I can’t _believe_ this, Yuu!” The buff baldy clutches his heart, gripping the embroidered Crow insignia of his jacket. He leans over to wipe false tears on his bicep. “Who are they? Who do they think they are!?” he wails between fake sobs.

“I- um—” Hitoka squeaks.

“Y-you’re- We’re—!?” Tadashi stutters.

The man’s spiky-haired cohort pricks right up, plants his hands on his hips, puffs his chest out, and pierces Tadashi’s eyes with a gaze more formidable than a bird of prey’s and more fiery than ten suns.

“Oi, hey! Hey,” he jabs his fingers at the gangly boy, reduced to the status of confused puppy, “You may be _up there_ freckles, but don’t get too full of yourself! You’d better take care of her, ya hear! Or Ryuu here and I aren’t gonna let ya off easy!”

Ryuu places a firm hand on Yuu’s shoulder, and weaves himself forwards. His face contorts into a dastardly leer, and he saunters ahead, hands now shoved in the pockets of his baggy black jeans. His eyes scan over the other’s semi-formal digs, starting from the loafers and ending at his freckled face. Tadashi swears he can feel himself shrink a few inches.

“Ya got that, _city boy_?”

“Ye—” Tadashi’s voice cracks, “I’m, we’re actually not from here, uh—”

Hitoka, face burrowed in the back of her friend’s tweed blazer and tiny hands clutching at his sides, pipes up in a muffled trill, “We’re gonna be late for our internship and I’m sorry and it’s really amazing meeting you in person but we’re gonna be late I’m _sorry_!!!”

Ryuu backs off. Yuu looks at him, and he stares back. They blink twice. The gears in their heads grind and churn, whirring as they begin to come to a belated, mutual understanding of their current circumstances. In this time, a few of the straggling paparazzi give them strange looks, jot hasty notes in their pocketbooks, and try to snap discreet shots of the quartet with the micro-cameras installed in their flashy glasses. The dynamic duo nod at each other, cutting off their weird telepathic connection, and their faces spread into jovial grins.

“Well, why didn’tcha say so!”

The two of them swagger over and slap Tadashi’s back, causing a very shocked Hitoka to jump away, wringing her hands.

“Welcome to the Fed, newbies!” they bellow.

“Thank? You?” Tadashi croaks.

“So, what’re ya in for huh? Who’re ya tailing?”

Tadashi fiddles with his collar and tries to speak as professionally as he can, “We’re interning as reporters for the—”

“We’re not criminals!” Hitoka wails, covering her face.

Yuu beams like mad and Ryuu laughs, leaning on his spiky cohort as he clutches his stomach and wipes away the beginnings of actual tears. He manages to compose himself just enough to respond, “Solid!”

“You just need access to the back, yeah?”

The rowdy duo straighten up with proud glints in their eyes. Yuu pounds a fist to his chest and pats his partner’s back.

“Ryuu and I here, as the Ultimate Cool Crows Engineers, have special privilege to give you lucky lovebirds access to the Forbidden Back Halls.”

“Um, actually, we’re not—”

“Just don’t make out back there. Nothing sketchy, all right? Last time someone tried that, Chikara got it on camera and everyone in the Fed found out.”

“That was really something,” Yuu comments. “We don’t need a repeat of that.”

“Hey, do you have your ID cards?” Ryuu rambles, pushing Tadashi along with him while Yuu helms the front and Hitoka trails behind.

“Y-yeah,” Hitoka musters out, quietly wondering if she could somehow ask the Crow engineers for their autographs. _I can trade it for Sparrows merch!_ she thinks, eyes sparkling as she shuffles through her purse.

“Well, hand ‘em over then!” Yuu exclaims, practically grabbing the cards from the two interns’ mitts. He flips them over a few times, letting the light flicker off their surfaces before exclaiming, “Looks legit!” and pulling out a tablet from the pack on his back. Two quick scans and some frantic screen tapping later, he hands them back with a grin. “That should grant you access to everywhere you need to go, but talk to anyone who looks important if something goes wrong.”

“Which it kinda could,” Ryuu snickers.

“Maybe,” Yuu nods, “But we’re totally professionals.”

The last few meters of the walk are punctuated with bellowing laughter, profuse apologies, and Yuu demonstrating parkour on the organically curving, slippery looking stairways. He stops when Tadashi looks about ready to preemptively call an ambulance.

The hall seems even bigger when trying to traverse it. Hitoka’s gaze trails along the floor where the white light from the windows is cut by her sky-blue reflection. Tadashi looks out at the city beyond, eyes following the paths of automated vehicles weaving steadily between skyscrapers extending past the horizon. When they reach the door they’re looking for, tucked under the enclave beneath an arching, white staircase, Yuu pats them both on the back.

“Just swipe ‘em there!” he exclaims, gesturing at a glowing panel at the door’s side.

Ryuu’s face scrunches up in concentration, and loosens immediately as if he’d made some great revelation. He pounds a fist into his palm. “Hey! Did’ya ever tell us who you’re following this season?”

“Oh!” Yachi pipes up, a little more at ease now with their company, “The Sparr—” she trails off. _Oh. Ohh… they’re rivals, so maybe it would be better not to mention it…_

Yuu’s ears perk up, “Hey, hey, she just said ‘Sparr’ right?”

Ryuu meets his gaze, “That could only mean one thing… right?”

 _Oh. Oh no._ Hitoka frets. _They found us out. They know and now they’re going to take away our passes. We’re gonna get arrested for lying and trespassing and we’d get held as prisoners by the Crows and I’m never going to get another chance to work with—_

“Kiyoko! Shimizu!” The two loudmouths wail her name, falling to their knees, spreading their arms, and turning up their palms as if sacrificing themselves to some great goddess. They stand up, nearly in tears, gripping each others’ upper arms for support.

“Get us her autograph!”

“No, no, it might be too difficult for them to even look her beauty in the face, Yuu!”

“Ryuu, you’re right! Maybe they can just give us a piece of her hair!?”

“Her old socks!?”

Tadashi coughs a little, nudging Hitoka and motioning towards the door he just swiped open. He mutters an, “Um, I think we should just. Go,” and Hitoka couldn’t really agree more. They slip away, shooting concerned glances at the raving Crows as the electronic door slides closed.

“HEY, BYE! Don’t forget to get us a souvenier! Even a scrap of the carpet she walked on would be fine!”

“Doesn’t that mean they’d have to get in her room!?”

“Oh, that’s right… WAIT! Take us with you! Damn, they’re gone—”

The two curse their luck, and curse it doubly when they turn around to come face-to-face with a less than amused Saeko. She cracks her knuckles, grinning wickedly. “I damn well swear I can hear you two halfway across the track over the sound of a revving engine, and I’m not gonna tell ya off for that. Makes it easy to find ya rascals, after all!”

She laughs from the bottom of her belly. Her engineer duo each squeak like tiny children as she approaches, Yuu grinning like a hyena and Ryuu grimacing with annoyance.

Saeko grabs their collars and starts dragging them away, her heels clomping against the floor.

“But, listen! I don’t wanna see any more news stories by those damn sneaky paparazzi talking about how my cool li’l bro and his wicked talented buddy broke their arms from doing parkour in the lobby half-naked!”

“Oh, come on! That was just _one_ time!”

“More importantly, it was _awesome_!”

The receptionist yawns at his desk, eyes idly following the jubilant trio as they make their way to their next appointment. _It was three times,_ he notes, flipping at the magazine laid out in front of him, yawning again. _And I think it’s time for me to nap._


	5. LAP 4: Collars Sharp Enough to Kill

Hitoka and Tadashi enter a long corridor, much simpler than any of the spaces they’d seen in the building before. Light filters in from a thin strip of windows running along the wall. If there had been any ornaments adorning the place, Hitoka doesn’t notice them, instead focusing on the plain gray door that stands at the near end of the hallway. A small sign sits by its doorframe, and the girl glances at it as an afterthought. It reads —

Chikara Ennoshita, Director of Cinematography.

Tadashi reaches for the knob, and it turns without much delay. Hitoka stumbles in right after him, pressing her hand onto the doorframe to balance herself. The two friends heave and wheeze, struggling to catch their breaths as they survey the room.

Rows of photographs clutter an adjacent wall in a welcome concentration of colour. Various frames of speeding cars, gleaming racetracks, and disheveled racers span its length, each image sporting a subtle alteration of lenses and filters to suit its purpose and mood. Hitoka gasps, eyes widening at the sight.

“These are from the last season, aren’t they?” the girl whispers to herself, mouth still agape. “I haven’t seen some of these before. They must have gotten cut out during production.”

She inches closer to the display, pulse quickening as her eyes focus on the stills from a race the Sparrows had competed in. The glow of taillights, the dips and curves of the track, the glint of the sun on the Compsognathus’ pristine white hood — the photos all capture them so vividly that adrenaline surges through Hitoka’s veins as the memory of that match replays in her mind. She remembers the heavy air, the hum of engines, and the enchanting presence of the racer that Hitoka’s mother had asked her to assist in interviewing. She remembers dark hair slick with sweat, a soft peach towel slung around a slim neck, the tight-fitting racing suit —

“Hitoka, I don’t think we should be touching those!”

“Ah, yeah,” Hitoka’s voice trembles in shock. She retracts her hand, her fingers dangerously close to smudging the portrait that stared back at her.

“As I was saying, I think we should be watching this,” Tadashi says as he points towards a desk. The screen on the table blinked with a message alert addressed to the two of them. He presses a button, and the screen projects out the flickering model of a dark-haired man smiling amicably.

“Good morning, Ms. Yachi, Mr. Yamaguchi. I’m sorry, due to some circumstances, I wouldn’t be able to meet you personally today,” the man says, “I’m Chikara Ennoshita. If you’re watching this message, then my assistant has already been alerted of your arrival. He should be meeting you here shortly to direct you. In the meantime, my other assistant will be serving you some refreshments while you wait. Please make yourselves comfortable.”

As the hologram flickers out, a soft _beep_ replaces the words that once filled the air. A pet-sized panel just above the desk slides open and a cylindrical robot — complete with tiny black butler bowtie — rolls out. After an electronic greeting, it opens one of its compartments to reveal a variety of chilled drinks. Hitoka’s eyes hover uneasily over the Hydrapure water bottles on display while she gingerly picks out a peach soda can. She taps the robot’s side as she hums out a thank you.

“Do you want to go to the restroom after?” Tadashi asks as he takes off the cover from the can of coffee he had taken out of the robot. “We should probably fix ourselves up before we meet them.”

“You’re right,” she replies. She retrieves a sheet of tissue from her purse and uses it to wipe the top of her soda can. “It’s not like we’d be meeting the Sparrows today, though. I heard from my mom that they had a bunch of interviews lined up for the rest of the afternoon, so they’d probably be too busy to entertain us.”

“Oh. I see. Well. There’s been a lot of hype around them this season after all, so that’s to be expected,” the boy nods dejectedly and takes a sip of his drink. “It’s too bad, though. I was looking forward to confirming whether Tsukishima really did most of the talking whenever they were off-screen.”

“Do you think there’s even any truth to that rumor?” Hitoka says with a raised eyebrow. “He barely says a thing when they appear in shows.”

“That’s why I want to witness him for myself,” Tadashi grins. “Whether the rumor is true or not doesn’t really matter to me. I just want to see and hear him talking, even if it’s only for our interview. Aren’t you looking forward to seeing Shimizu, too?”

“That shouldn’t even be a question. I already know she’s even more incredible in real life,” Yachi says as she hooks her finger under the soda’s pull-tab and flicks it open with a _pop_ , waiting for the fizzling to subside before she brings the can to her lips. The soda bubbles in her mouth as she gulps down the sweet peach flavour, the cool liquid refreshing her parched tongue. She keeps the can close, letting the sounds of her chugging overlap with those of footsteps outside the office.

Hitoka hums around her drink when she hears to door click, but doesn’t look up.

When it swooshes open, she feels Tadashi tense beside her, and it’s only then that she glances at the doorway. She sputters, her everything catches in her throat, and she can feel her nostrils burning.

_Am I dreaming? Is this a dream? This has to be a dream, Tadashi, pinch me—_

The burn intensifies as those saccharine bubbles burst against her skin, decidedly too real to ease her shock. Sticky, crackling soda dribbles down her chin, spills and soaks into her shirt while the sugary smell of artificial peach winds its way into the room. Her eyes water as she continues to cough away what little is left of her dignity, blinking rapidly and feeling the last of it zip out of her as soon as what’s at the door comes into focus.

_Oh. My. God._

Perfect black hair and a halo of soft gold, standing side by side in matching, tailor-trimmed button-downs with collars sharp enough to kill. Their faces glow from their smooth skin and the glint of the frames that rested on their thin noses, each of their pink lips pressed into a calculated expression.

“H-Hitoka, are you alright?” Tadashi stumbles on his words, his mouth still gaping like a fish. He rushes to his friend and raises his hands before him, waving them frantically before finally helping the girl shuffle out of her soiled coat.

“I-I’m, um—”

“Kiyoko, you have an extra shirt with you, don’t you?”

“Ah. Yeah, I do,” the girl says with a nod as she reaches into her duffel bag and retrieves a folded pink square. Her polished black flats cross the threshold, and the room seems much smaller in her presence. It might’ve been a trick of the light, but Hitoka reasons with herself that it’s only natural for the other’s long locks to shine like polished onyx. _God, she’s so much taller in person._

“You could borrow this if you’d like.”

“Oh. Ah. A-are you sure? I w-would love you, I mean, I’d love to!”

Shimizu freezes. Tadashi’s eyes widen with shock. Tall, Blond, and Babyfaced deepens the look of irritated bemusement that he walked in with and clicks his tongue. Hitoka begins the process of shrinking into herself in the hope that she might be able to transform into a tiny bug and scurry away.

“If she wasn’t sure, she wouldn’t have offered in the first place,” the giant drones, his face screaming _Why am I here?_

Shimizu glances up at him, and her shoulders relax a bit. Directing the smallest smile back towards Hitoka, she graciously adds on, “...He always looks unimpressed, but he’s okay once you get to know him.” She holds out her hand to shake the smaller girl’s and then Tadashi’s in turn.

Hitoka melts. _It’s soft. Her hand is so soft. It’s as soft as Heaven. Did I die? Am I in Heaven?_

Nodding to herself and taking in a soft breath, Shimizu straightens up and musters her usual level-headed celebrity voice. “I’m Kiyoko Shimizu, pilot of the Sparrows. With me today is my engineer and co-pilot Kei Tsukishima. We look forward to working with you this summer.”

The interns return the gesture shakily, one still in shock, and the other in a sad state of sensory overload from being so close to his idol that he can watch him breathing.

“Hitoka Yachi,” the tiny blonde mumbles pitifully, soul long departed from her body.

“I’m, yes,” Tadashi eloquently responds, bowing a little more than he needs to, “Yamashi. I mean! Tadashi. Yamaguchi?”

Kei resists the urge to roll his eyes. A small smile tugs again at Kiyoko’s lips, but it quickly makes way for neutrality.

“It’s nice that we’re able to meet again,” Kiyoko says, almost whispering, her voice considerably softer than on camera.

Hitoka opens and closes her mouth closed, like a guppy incapable of stringing thoughts into words. She clenches her shaky fists and brings her arms closer to herself, trying desperately to keep herself from falling apart.

“If you hold that shirt too close, you’re going to get soda on it,” Kei notes, boredly eyeing how Hitoka jumps at his voice and proceeds to drop the borrowed shirt on the ground.

“Ah! S-sorry, thank you,” Hitoka says as she quickly lowers herself to grab the shirt back in her hands. “Sh-should I hand this to your assistants when I’m done using it? Or maybe your manager, or—”

“No need to trouble yourself,” Shimizu says as she lowers her eyes to the floor. She plays with her bag’s zipper for a moment before deciding to open it up.

“Y-y-you mean I can k-k-k-keep it?” Hitoka stutters.

“I was thinking more like I could meet you to get it,” the dark-haired racer clarifies. She takes out her wallet and slips out a small card. She visibly swallows before putting her hand back in the bag to get a jet black pen. “Ah, actually, it’d be better for you to contact me through my personal e-mail instead.”

“P-p-personal?” the shorter girl yelps, stunned as she studies every stroke and pause of Shimizu’s penmanship as she wrote down her address. Hitoka’s body feels electrified when the racer’s fingers lightly brush against hers when she receives the other’s business card.

“Just scan her business pin anyway, just in case,” Tsukishima says with a smirk and a crease between his brows, clearly amused at the scene before him.

Shimizu eyes Tsukishima pointedly, and he scrunches his nose up with disdain before sliding a card out of his own pocket. He refuses to make contact with the two interns, instead handing it to Shimizu, who in turn lets them scan it.

“Th-thank you,” Yamaguchi says when he finishes saving Tsukishima’s contact details.

“We’ll be taking our leave first, then,” Shimizu says as she adjusts the bag straps on her shoulders, “but I’ll look forward to hearing from you.”

The duo begin turning to leave when the door clicks and slides open again, and they both freeze. A tall, owlish boy stands at the threshold, quizzically raised eyebrows hovering over sharp, lidded eyes that flicker between the two racers.

“Hello.”

Tsukishima’s expression relaxes a bit. He laces his hands out in front of himself, shifting his gaze fully towards the new arrival.

“I’m here for the new interns,” he eyes the two racers curiously, “Didn’t you two have an interview?”

They look down at their watches, up at each other with matching looks of concern, nod, and slink out of the room, Shimizu walking just a tad faster than Tsukishima, who leaves the owlish boy a subtle nod of farewell. He shoots back a half-second smirk before moving to shake each intern’s hand. Yamaguchi tilts his head, squinting slightly as he glances between the pale, black-headed boy in front of him and the door that the fair, flaxen-haired boy just left through.

“My name is Keiji Akaashi. I work in the cinematography department here and I’ve been instructed to show you around. There’s no need to introduce yourselves. I’ve already read your files.”

“Uh… huh…” Yachi manages to sputter out, mind reeling with a memory she had been trying to repress. She reaches over to clutch at Tadashi’s sleeve, but the gesture doesn’t catch the freckled boy’s attention — he’s much too busy contemplating things of his own.

“I was going to suggest getting lunch, but—” he raises a brow at the state of Hitoka’s shirt and the extra one clutched in her hand, “—should I show you to the restroom?”

“...Please.”

Keiji nods curtly. He walks over to the robotic butler and proceeds to input some commands.

With a tight grip, Hitoka begins to tug incessantly at Tadashi’s jacket, and only then does her friend turn to look at her.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. Before him, the robot beeps and rolls back to its station, and Keiji moves to open the office door for them.

“That’s him,” Hitoka whispers through clenched teeth. Tadashi looks back at her, confused. She whimpers and pales even more as she adds, “When I tried to get those goggles, he was there! Th-that’s the guy that saw me-”

She chokes back her whisper upon catching Keiji's quizzical gaze on her, and both she and Tadashi hold their breaths.  

"...Don't worry. It's not too far from here." Their escort picks at his fingers, shifting his eyes to the door as it opens, and the two interns exhale behind him on their way out. 


	6. LAP 5: Humming Hover Shoes

Shimizu arrives at the end of the hallway long before Tsukishima even cuts it halfway close. She grabs hold of the door and keeps it open for a moment, peering into the emergency stairwell before turning to her co-pilot.

His pale face wrinkles with concern when Shimizu begins to tighten the strap of her bag.

"Kiyoko, no—"

Her mouth stretches into a grin. "If I win, I'm telling the press you stayed up crying to The Land Before Time last night."

Tsukishima's eyes widen into a look of horror that Shimizu allows herself to appreciate for just two seconds before launching into a sprint, jogging up the staircase with practiced ease. The dingy lighting just barely illuminates the steps, but she doesn't even think to look at where she sets her feet — each stride and jump comes naturally, muscle memory sparing her the need to calculate her movements.

"If you lose, I'm telling Keiji about your little crush," Tsukishima challenges, his low voice amplified in the closed space.

"Fair enough," she calls back, increasing her pace when she hears the other's footsteps close behind.

She storms into the fourth floor, affixing a composed expression to her face as she runs towards her destination. She slows down considerably when a group of cleaning robots rolls in and out of a nearby room across her path, and eventually the burn in her chest begins to subside. Just as she's about to quicken her stride again, Tsukishima whizzes past her, smirking, his shoes humming and hovering slightly above the ground. She scrunches her nose at his little invention, and her legs tense before she sets out to catch up on him.

The deserted hallway echoes with steady humming and the stomping and squeaking of shoes, with Shimizu pressing against the tile to slide around the couple of sharp turns that mark the shortcut to the VIP dressing room.

She pauses before the door to straighten her shirt, managing to brush off all the hair from her face by the time her co-pilot squeaks to halt beside her, the noise from his humming hover shoes sputtering alarmingly. "Still can't handle turns very well..." he mutters, reaching down to press a button on the side of each heel.

The blond straightens up and adjusts his eyeglasses in a poorly disguised attempt to downplay the pout on his lips. "You got too much of an early lead."

She stares at him blankly. "You could've started earlier if you hadn't lingered behind for Keiji."

"That has nothing to do with anything."

"Your excuses won't change the results," Shimizu says firmly.

His shoulders sag slightly as he sighs. "Just. Don't say it today. Please."

"You're not mentally prepared enough?" Shimizu snickers.

"I'd rather have the headlines raving about something other than my film preferences, thank you," he says with a leveled tone, his shoulders still rising and falling from his labored breathing. "Besides, Yui wouldn't be too happy to hear about our race features getting outstaged by such a trivial thing."

"I guess you're right," she agrees.

This time, Tsukishima holds the door open for her.

"You're here!— You're late!" the fleeting look of relief that flashes on their manager's face quickly changes to that of concern. "I was so worried!"

"Sorry," the engineer says with a slight bow of his head. An assistant offers him a towel, which he wordlessly accepts before patting it on his brow.

"Where were you two, anyway? I had people looking all over for you!"

"We took a long detour," Shimizu adds.

"Again?" their manager sighs. She signals to the make-up artists with a wave of her hand. "Okay, everyone, we have to hurry, the press call starts in—"

"It'll be fine, Yui. We have enough time," Shimizu reassures as a staff member leads her to a chair.

She briefly closes her eyes as soft bristles sweep over her the bridge of her nose and across her forehead and chin. From the illuminated mirror before her, she glances at the reflection of her co-pilot being prepped up in a similar fashion, and she doesn't miss the sour look on his face as the artist comments on the darkened circles under his eyes.

"The race is still a ways away. No need to lose sleep over it already," the assistant says as they add their finishing touches.

Shimizu also doesn't miss the dead stare that Tsukishima gives her when she clears her throat.

"Okay, just wait here for a bit. We'll give you the signal on when to enter, alright?" Yui says as she hands water bottles to the two Sparrows. She looks at the assistants in the room and says, "Thanks for your help, everyone. I'm so sorry for the holdup, the Hawks should be waiting for you in the other hall."

The styling crew files out of the room in a matter of seconds, and soon enough Shimizu finds herself having a staring contest with Tsukishima.

The blond stays silent, lips fixed in a straight line as he studies his pilot's unchanging expression.

Shimizu doesn't move. She patiently waits for him to say the first word.

Tsukishima visibly clenches his jaw and quirks his eyebrow as he says, “You seriously gave her your personal e-mail.”

“There’s no harm in that,” Shimizu says as she smooths her hair.

“What do you even see in that microscopic girl?” Tsukishima says as he straightens out his shirt. 

The dark-haired racer dabs the back of her hand against her forehead, wiping off the beads of sweat by her temples. She interlaces her fingers on her lap as her mind replays snippets of bubbly laughter, awkward blunders and flushed cheeks, bright eyes blazing into a viewfinder with a passion so potent it—

"It's a lot of little things," she replies.

"Little things?" Tsukishima repeats with a small quirk of his mouth.

The "On Air" sign by the wall flickers on, and Shimizu promptly stands from her seat. She dusts the lint off her shoulders as she waits for Tsukishima to follow her.

"Do you think she'd even return that shirt of yours?" he asks as they approach the studio door.

"I have faith in her, just as I've always had faith in you."

"Really?" he scoffs.

“Thanks for the moral support, Kei,” Shimizu says as she rests her hand on Tsukishima’s shoulder, patting him twice for good measure. “I’d gladly help you out with Keiji, too, if you’re still interested in him.”

“Wh—”

She doesn’t even wait for Tsukishima to finish. She simply turns away and walks through the door, mouth set in a poised smile as she stares at the cameras that greet her. The bright lamps of the crowded press room do little to alleviate the humidity, but the thought that she'd soon be looking into the polished lens of a photographer-in-training is enough to send excitement crackling through her veins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story's not over yet! See ya in the next update~
> 
> Stay fast!


End file.
